The Community of Commerce
Craigslist may be breathing down the necks of Google and Ebay with well over three billion page views a month (7th largest on the internet), but it still retains an almost anti-profit business model, employing just 19 people working in a San Francisco living room. Craig Newmark, the founder of the no-frill community website, attributes its growth and popularity to the common desire for urban dwell... posted on Jan 15 2006, 1,659 reads

Banking Change
When Dutch artist Van den Baar needed a loan for a new space to live and work, he faced a lot of furrowed brows among the bankers who considered his loan too risky. Van den Baar finally found his mortgage in a bank that didn’t see artists so much as financial risks but important players in the effort to create a sustainable society. For the past 25 years, Triodos Bank, a $1.2 billion institutio... posted on Jan 14 2006, 1,500 reads

To Be of Use
As a pioneer in the sustainable business movement -- assistant to Cesar Chavez, founder of Briarpatch Natural Food, Smith & Hawken, Organic Boquet (first organic floral company), and Organic To go -- Dave Smith is on a mission to inspire people everywhere to reconcile compassionate values with capitalism. In his book, "To Be of Use", he shares stories of how business can be a force for radical ch... posted on Jan 10 2006, 6,070 reads

Social Capitalists
How long has it been since you were surprised by hope? As you browsed the morning newspaper, when did you last feel a sense that the world was becoming a better place? That the forces propelling the future were on the right track? That the power of imagination was serving those with healing ideals rather than those with darker agendas? Wait no more. Fast Company's 2006 Social Capitalist Award hi... posted on Jan 05 2006, 1,927 reads

Year Up
As a Big Brother volunteer while working on Wall Street, Gerald Chertavian, 39, "saw that urban young adults, who are wonderfully talented, supersmart and capable, didn't have a path into the mainstream." For his business school essay, he wrote about starting a school that would fix that. In 1999 Gerald turned that essay into a reality with Year Up, a school that provides 18-24 adult from disadva... posted on Jan 03 2006, 1,568 reads

Good News Garage
"Most needy people are poor because they don't have jobs," car mechanic Hal Colston declares. And they are often jobless, because they can't to get work. In 1996, a single mom of two children approached Hal in tears; she had just bought a car for $500, her brakes started failing on the way home, and the previous owner refused to cooperate. Not only did Hal fix that car, but he gave birth to Goo... posted on Jan 02 2006, 1,841 reads

Bhutan
King Wangchuk of Bhutan, created a novel development plan three decades ago, mandating that his country’s success be judged in part by the degree to which it makes the Bhutanese citizenry happy. Yes, happiness. The result is a kingdom that has peace, an intact Buddhist culture, unspoiled forests and mountains, and one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. ... posted on Dec 16 2005, 3,353 reads

Nonprofit Pharmaceutical
Of the more than 100 billion dollars spent each year on health research and development, only ten percent goes into treating ninety percent of the world's health problems, found mostly in the developing world. Dr. Victoria Hale saw that part of the reason was that the pharmaceutical industry had traded its aim of developing affordable drugs to those in need, to a profit-seeking one. So, she found... posted on Dec 15 2005, 3,067 reads

The Value of Earth
How much is the earth worth? Ecological economist Robert Constanza estimates that the services the earth provides humans is worth $33 trillion, a figure greater than the annual gross national products of all the world's economies combined. ... posted on Dec 08 2005, 1,667 reads

Carbon Care
British Airways has launched a scheme where its customers can choose to offset the carbon dioxide emissions created during their flights. Customers can pay via a link from the airline’s website for the cost of the emissions created by their journey. The money raised will be used by an organization called Climate Care to invest in sustainable energy projects that tackle global warming by reducin... posted on Dec 06 2005, 1,386 reads